A Much Less Exciting Week (in a good way)

Oh yes. I'll take stomach bugs and post-shampoo fun with a fine-tooth comb anyday over broken windows and police/librarian reports. This week has brought puking (his word) and the incessant repetition of the word (phrase?) "poo-poo." And that is just fine.

On the Language Acquisition Front there has been a new development. Are you ready for this?

Drumroll ...

PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

For example:

• "I've been mowing the grass."

• "That deer's been standing in the front yard without a mama."

• "I've been hanging upside down."

• Dad's been jackhammering in the garage."

• I've been puking over the side [of the recliner]."

(Note: This is after he had already puked (past perfect with medial adverb) several times.

He hasn't quite learned yet about the differences between "since" and "for" (usually those are used with the tense described above), but hey! just the triple-word verb phrase is advanced enough for me. He's progressing nicely with his presently perfect linguistic developments.

Tell me that you picked up on that pun. Can you call that a pun? You can probably call it a lot of other things too ... particularly things related to the author.

NOTE: If you are only interested in my child, then you can stop reading now.

So, mostly I've been teaching grammar to kids who are headed for nervous breakdowns before their freshman year of college. There are days when I think about sending them emails that say something nasty like, "Why don't you diagram this command-form sentence: Go outside and play." But I don't. Because Lord knows that their parents would probably fly down here and take me to court. Poor little Troy from Connecticut (ahem) called and left a message the other night saying that I had posted his essay in the workshop (for peer editing) with all the wrong paragraph breaks and that he thought this may have affected the questions I posed for the class to answer ... particularly the one about the placement of his thesis statement ... and could I please "remedy the problem at my earliest convenience?" So I tried to remedy it as best I could, but I couldn't delete the posting ... I could only re-post another copy of his essay with the CORRECT paragraph breaks (and the same question about the thesis, because that question had absolutely nothing to do with HIM but rather with the curriculum requirements). So I emailed him to explain that I had remedied my little heart out despite my inability to delete the original. And he replied with the very helpful information that I should write to the JHU/CTY customer service desk and that they could help me with that technical problem right away. There is a two-word adjective for children like this, but my mama brought me up better than to post it out loud on the World Wide Web. If you can guess, I'll volunteer to help you with all the verb conjugations and sentence diagramming dilemmas in your life.

And speaking of my skills ...

I just discovered that you can post "Will trade X for Y" ads on Craigslist. I'm thinking of posting something like "Will trade English grammar lessons for any of the following: pedicures, childcare, kitchen mopping, spider-web removal, dishwasher fixing, or information regarding acquiring a work visa in Turkey."

And on that note ... as some of you already know ... we are planning a major adventure for the fall which involves selling our car, storing our furniture, and temporarily moving to Istanbul where I have acquired a job at Bilgi University. There. The announcement.

But the progress is slow as it involves two countries' governments and this is doing a number on my fragile mental health. Luckily, I am medicated.

So, that's all. Tah-tah.